Telling J and L

J is on Skype the second I bring up my computer. The internet is still down in part of the village so we are using another service in the nest. She wants to know the news. I tell her

JSL:  CRAP, DOUBLE CRAP, TRIPLE CRAAAAAAAPPPP!

DLN: QUADRUPLE CRAP but I have a great role model to follow.

JSL: Remember that if they are tiny and enclosed you have plenty of time for decisions!!! Don't rush it.

DLN: And relatively young. But I want the little suckers out of my body and I want to punish the breast by trowing it in the trash.

JSL:Quintuple CRAP, SHIT, SCHEISSE, MERDE -hmmmm wonder how many languages we can come up with. Also, not that I should give anyone advice, wait until you have a game plan before alerting Llara.

JSL: You go girl: trow that breast! At least it made me laugh.

DLN:The only thing is this weekend she is with Susan and has support

JSL:Even if that wasn't the intention: someone should come up with a lexicon of funny bloopers as we type to fast.

DLN:Donna-Lane NELSON: True.

DLN:I will find humor damn it

JSL:: Ah ha - then by all means Skype with her this weekend. By-the-way, has she had a base mammo?

JSL:  If you can't find the humor, we're all done for.

DLN: No and I'm giving her one when she is here for 62 Euros

JSL:And yes, I ended that in a preposition just to make you smile

JSL: Good idea - the mammo that is.

DLN: I noticed. I'll do anything to make you end a sentence with a preposition.

JSL: So you have, dammit!

JSL:Again, dear roomy, am sorrier than I can write. I am in your corner if I have to bludgeon those little cells myself (I will put you out first of course).

JSL: Seriously, I've got to go or I'll never get there. But I will travel easier not having to wait longer for the awful news. The shit has hit the fan, now we have to clean the walls.

DLN:I am emotionally Okay. I know what I have to do, properly annoyed that I have to do it, don't feel bad about the breast loss (not thrilled either).

JSL: "See" you in a couple of hours. And will be sending mountain energy!

DLN: Thanks for the laugh.

DLN:Drive carefully.
JSL:On the positive side - bras for prothesis have gotten much cuter - a bit far to go just for cute bras, but what the heck some of us go to extremes.

DLN: giggle

******

I Skype with Llara, my daughter.  She has just finished one HR contract and has a few days off before she begins another in Harvard Square (I'm a bit jealous because Harvard Square was always a favorite sport).

She is in Ocean Grove with her surrogate aunt who knows. I'm happy someone will be there for her to talk it out after we get off.

Her reaction is "Oh shit." I reassure her about the good parts, share my fear about chemo, but she is okay with it. She will be here in late August when hopefully it will be over. Even if I do need chemo, we will know where we stand.

I plan to be around to harass her for quite a while. As J says, the purpose of parents is to embarrass your kids. Deep down, I think she's relieved I never have been a traditional mother, just an adoring one.

MRI easy peasy

Well not quite.

I was really nervous, so nervous that I forgot the injection fluid. I was afraid the machine would totally enclose me and the claustrophobic part of my personality was threatening to overtake me.

"Pas grave," the nurse told me about my forgetfulness. I still find it interesting that in France you bring your shots to the hospital having purchased them at any pharmacy.

We had been amused at the parking in front of the building.

All those places for Dr. Robert who doesn't work in the building.

Unlike most hospital gowns, this one had long sleeves and was warm against the AC, which considering we're having a canicule felt good. Heat and I will never be friends.

Phew...

The machine was open. The waiting room had had a picture of its delivery on the wall. Was it wrapped in the breast cancer pink on purpose?

There were two holes for my breasts that would have been okay for a person with  44DDDD boobs. "I'm not THAT big!" I said in French.

I lay on my stomach, inserted my breasts and told not to more for 15 minutes. I shut my eyes and felt an ever so slow movement. A little later I felt the coolness of the liquid in my veins used to show things up in color. Who wants a black and white MRI reading anyway?

Divert my thoughts. First I thought of Obama singing "Amazing Grace" then I thought of  Leonard Cohen singing "Hallelujah" at the Montreux Jazz Festival. He skipped off stage at the end after several encores, but I couldn't think of all the lyrics.

My next mind trip to keep me from moving was to pretend my body was slowly turning dusty rose starting at me feet and slowly swirling up to my neck and back again. Dusty rose is my favorite color.

Sometimes with the banging and humming of the machine the color retreated a little but by the time my body was covered and uncovered and back to its normal color, it was over.

The doctor told me my left breast was clean. One of the tumors is close to the lymph nodes, which worries me. I want those bastard cells not to make the leap over. It will be what it will be.

Rick was waiting for me. What a comfort to see his face.

Pygmy Amazons

Wikipedia describes Amazon Warriors: 'Hippocrates describes them as: "They have no right breasts...for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm."'

I pointed out to Rick I was joining some really strong women when I lose my right breast. He pointed out that I was tiny. At five foot one or 153 cms. I'm not impressive.

I thought of starting a Pygmy Amazon Warrior group who would work not for war, but world peace. However, I was never that good with spears or bow and arrows.

Now in book format

Now in Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=cockeyed%20nipple

My wonderful husband pulled the blogs together. He wrote about the blog/book "D-L Nelson's friends will tell you she is incredibly strong-willed with an infectiously positive attitude toward life, and she needed every bit of that spirit when she learned she had breast cancer. This book represents her day-by-day diary of the cancer experience, adapted from a blog she wrote as one means of coping with the crisis. If you have been through a similar trauma, or know someone who has, you'll appreciate the moments of fear, fortitude, humor, and hubris. American born, living in Switzerland, Nelson represents women worldwide in emphasizing the importance of regular physical checkups and mammogram"

He's working on a Nook version.

And for those that have breast cancer, I had noted I didn't want reconstructive surgery. If a man couldn't accept me with my eyebrow scar and tilted nipple, then I wouldn't want him. Rick back into my life after my surgery and loves me with the scar.

Anyone who reads this and hasn't had a mammogram please do.

All proceeds from this book will go to funding mammograms. I don't need the money. I have something better  -- My life.

WHEW

Two years ago at this time I was busy with radiation after having a cancer removed from my right breast. It was encapsulated and had not spread to the lymph nodes. I was lucky. People gape when I say the experience was fun sometimes. It was also emotionally strengthening, scarey, rewarding, and a number of other adjectives.

Any hypochondria tendencies I have and there are many are are not about the cancer, but I will admit when the doctor who did the X-rays for my asthma mentioned something wasn't looking right with my breast, there was a major gulp. She thought it was probably to do with scaring but recommended a mammogram.

It did not cause a great deal of worry on my part. I decided to say nothing to my daughter, housemate or fiancé because the chances of it being serious were minimal but I made the appointment for a mammo anyway.

My gynie can do mammograms because he has a colleague, a doctor from Paris who comes to Switzerland to work in my gynie's clinic a couple of times a week. He told me with a smile as I was taking of my bra, that he does not like the name Nelson as a Frenchman, but I told him the origin was Swedish and had nothing to do with Admirals and Trafalgar Square.

Both he and my gynie looked at the results and decided it was scaring --nothing more.

WHEW

Still to all women, get those mammograms.  They can save your life.

When I told my housemate, I suggested that we make the house a cancer-free zone not just for us but for all our friends and family member. Enough is enough.

(The reason I chronicled the entire breast cancer experience is in the hope that those that might go through the procedure might remove a bit of the anxiety.)

Mammorgram

The see-your breath temperature is a pleasure after the too hot summer as I wait for the pre-dawn bus to take me into the city. When it comes it is filled with a few businessmen trying to beat colleagues into the office and high school kids on their way to the Lycée founded by Jean Calvin 500+ years ago.

The curriculum is modernized from the old Latin, Greek, Bible and Hebrew of Calvin’s time. One sun-bleached blond teenager sits in the aisle, her notebook on her lap finishing her math homework by copying answers from long exercises onto a single sheet. I’m always impressed by the notebook system of French schools and how neat the work is.

The lake is changing colour from dark gray to light gray as the bus passes it. The Jet d’Eau is not on yet.

I’ve allowed time to try a Pumpkin Spice Latté and pumpkin muffin at Starbucks before my appointment. I read the Tribune de Genève, finding the plans to substitute train service in some areas with buses and the story of a robber who dressed as a bank employee complete with badge allowing him code access, interesting.

“24 juillet 1942” I tell the receptionist at La Maternité. I know the drill. I’m a birthdate more than a patient.

“Follow the yellow line, first floor.” She hands me a sheet of labels coded with my medical history.

I don’t have long to wait. 

“Pourquoi six mois?” The technician asks after telling me to strip to the waist.

I tell her that I’m not taking the after-cancer medication, which is why I allow my breasts to be pressed into rectangles twice a year as a compromise. I don’t regret my decision. My joints no longer ache and morning sicknesses at my age was unwelcomed. The survival stats with my type of cancer, my stage, my treatment were not that different for those that followed the plan and those that did not.

The pressing over the doctor tells me I’m clean. Although I had a thermographie last month telling me the same thing, I’m relieved. A routine worry niggles at strange times.

On the way home I get off a couple of stops before mine to walk by the vineyards and watch the pickers with their metal baskets on their backs. The vendage is far from completed with many of the vines still heavy with grapes. A truck heaped to the brim with purple fruit is parked to the side and one of the pickers adds his bounty to the pile.

The lake is now in full colour. The leaves are yellowing, not the brilliant colours of my native New England but beautiful.

It is 10:45 and each moment of my morning has been filled with tiny delights and I’m so grateful for the Swiss medical system. I’m so grateful for being alive and able to be surrounded by so many sensations.

I made the decision as of February 1 not to take the medication they told me to take for five years. Early mornings were like being newly pregnant, my joints ached and I was losing my hair. Dr. Tran had shown me the stats for women with my type of cancer at my age with my treatment and the difference in survival rates were not huge. People in my age group are dying of all sorts of things including being in my age group. The alternative she said was Avastin. I wasn't sure. I have a great disregard for medicine in general and wish doctors would look more into the tests before prescribing including the parameters of the tests and who would pay for them. For new drugs it is impossible to know the long term effects, but at 69 and 3/4s I'm not worried about what the drug will do 30 years from now. I took the prescription and didn't fill it. It was great feeling normal again. I'm no fan of the FDA. Afterall they are funded by the companies whose products they test which is a major conflict of interest. Last November they stopped recommending Avastin for breast cancer.